Biography

Short biography:
Jana Winderen is an artist educated in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London with a background in mathematics, chemistry and fish ecology from the University of Oslo.
Jana focuses on audio environments and ecosystems which are hard for humans to access, both physically and aurally.
Amongst her activities are immersive multi-channel sound installations and concerts which have been performed internationally in major institutions and public spaces in America, Europe and Asia. Winderen lives and works in Oslo.

In 2011 she won the Golden Nica, Ars Electronica, for Digital Musics & Sound Art.

She is currently showing the mulitcahnnel audio installation «bára», a commission by TBA21 Academy for the exhibition Tidalectics in Vienna (2017), currently on show in the exhibition Ocean (2018), at LeFresnoy in France. Recent works include «Rats - secret soundscapes of the city», commissioned by the Munchmuseum on the move / NyMusikk in Oslo (2017), «Transmission» commissioned by the V-A-C foundation for Geometry of Now, Moscow (2017), «Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone» for the Sonic Acts festival, Amsterdam (2017). Earlier works includes the large multichannel installation «DIVE» in Park Avenue Tunnel, for New York Department of Transportation, «Ultrafield» for MoMA in New York and «Watersignal» for Guggenheimmuseum/Unsound festival. Jana was recently an artist-in-residence at the TBA21 Academy, and releases her audio-visual works on Touch.

Extended biography:
Jana Winderen researches the hidden depths with the latest technology; her work reveals the complexity and strangeness of the unseen world beneath. The audio topography of the oceans and the depth of ice crevasses are brought to the surface. She is concerned with finding and revealing sounds from hidden sources, both inaudible for the human senses and sounds from places and creatures difficult to access.

Other recent sounds work include "Classified" for the Borealis festival, Bergen (2017), "Drifting" for TBA21 Academy, Kochi, India (2016), "The Listener" for Second Nature, Caen (2016), "Interrupting the Surface" for Galerija Bačva at The Meštrovićev pavilion in Zagreb (2016), "Tesersuaq" for The Lake radio (2016), "The Wanderer", for the Lorch Schive Art prize (2015), "Pasvikdalen", commissioned by Sonic Acts, Amsterdam (2015), "On this Beach" for VICC in Gotland (2015), "Dive" commissioned by New York Department of Transportation for Park Avenue Tunnel, New York, (2014), “Out of Range” commissioned by Deutschlandradio, Kultur, Germany, (2014), "Ultrafield" commissioned by MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, (2013), “Water Signal”, commissioned by The Guggenheim Museum and the Unsound festival in New York for the Stillspotting project, “ultraworld”, a commission by Sound and Music for the listening room at BEOPEN, Trafalgar Square, London (2012), a concert and talk at MIT, Boston, in relation to the Tribute to Commemorate Electro-acoustic pioneer Marianne Amacher; “Survivors of the Waterworld – Measuring Pollution by Sound” for Gøteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (2011); “Energy Field” live at ARS Electronica Festival for receiving the Golden Nica in 2011; “Between Dry Land”, commissioned for the installation “The Morning Line” (by Matthew Ritchie) for the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, opened in Istanbul May 2010. “Spawning Ground - from Coquet Head to the North Sea” was also commissioned for the AV festival in Newcastle (2010), and in the same year Jana also opened a permanent sound installation at the Knut Hamsun Centre in Hamarøy, Norway.

Recent releases include the USB stick releases "The Listener"(2016) and "The Wanderer" (2015) on Ash International (UK), the digital download "Out of Range" (2014), the 12” Vinyl, “Debris” (2012), the album “Energy Field” (2010), “Heated: Live in Japan” (2009), all on Touch (UK); the audio cassette “The Noisiest Guys on the Planet” (2009) on Ash International (UK); the USB stick, “Ants”; the digital download “Submerged” (2009), also on Touch, and the 7” vinyl “Surface Runoff” (2008) on Autofact (USA).

Artist Statement

I like the immateriality of a sound work and the openness it can have for both associative and direct experience and sensory perception. I have been busy searching for sounds from hidden sources, frequencies which are not possible for us to perceive, as well as from places and creatures that are hard to access. Over the last twelve years I have collected recordings made by hydrophones, from rivers, shores and the ocean in Asia, Europe and America, from Sea Ice on the North Pole, from the Barents sea and glaciers in Greenland, Iceland and Norway. In the depths of the oceans there are invisible but audible soundscapes, about which we are largely ignorant, even if the oceans cover 70% of our planet. Through focused listening and recording I have been exploring the soundcaracters of coral reefs in the Caribbean and in the Pacific with hydrophones. I am also experimenting with different types of microphones to collect sounds which are not obviously recognisable, but give room for broader, more imaginative readings or sounds that are unreachable for the human senses, such as ultrasound. I use these sounds as source material for composition in a live environment or to create immersive installations, also for film, dance, radio, CD, cassette and vinyl productions.